Recent documents from the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) have
shown that the heroic struggle of the Filipino people against the
comprador capitalist Duterte regime is advancing despite the efforts by
the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and their U.S.
sponsors to crush the Protracted People’s War and destroy the New
People’s Army (NPA). The Party has also shared important theoretical
insights for revolutionaries around the world. For example, they stated
that, “unless they undergo progressive political education and
revolutionary ideological remolding, the intelligentsia and the rest of
the urban petty bourgeoisie tend to be the passive transmission belt of
imperialist and reactionary ideas although they may easily complain
against the degree of exploitation which they suffer.”1 Such
statements and analysis provide key summations of general lessons of the
revolutionary movement in the Philippines which are very relevant for
Maoists around the world. This is especially true given that, in the
U.S., the urban petty bourgeoisie’s propagation of bourgeois and
imperialist ideology is a key obstacle to building the revolutionary
movement.

The CPP’s 2016 Constitution and Program contains many correct ideas
and important insights. However it also advances positions in line with
thepolitics of the CPP’s founding Chairperson Jose Maria Sison. As will
be shown below, Sison’s stands and statements strongly indicate that he
is a revisionist. These stands should analyzed and criticized. Of
particular concern is Sison’s history of supporting revisionist parties
and social imperialist countries. Hopefully this criticism can
contribute to larger political struggles in the International Communist
Movement (ICM) on the question of revisionism and the historical lessons
of past revolutionary struggles.

Mass Proletariat condemns the assault on the Yemeni port of Hudaydah by
the Saudi and UAE coalition, the latest act of imperialist aggression in
the country’s seven-year-old civil-war. This coalition—while nominally
representing the Yemeni government-in-exile of President Abdrabbuh
Mansour Hadi—is backed, both politically and militarily, by France,
the U.K., and the U.S. The coalition is attempting to rest control of
Hudaydah from the Houthi-led, Iran-backed Supreme Political Council. The
Houthis, currently in control of large sections of the country, are a
Yemeni Shi’a political party with a corresponding military wing. The
assault takes place within an ongoing civil war in Yemen. While the
Houthis do not fundamentally represent the interests of the Yemeni
people, the coalition’s assault on Hudaydah will cut off the flow of
basic material aid to the masses of Yemen and exacerbate the ongoing
famine, cholera crisis, and abject suffering in the country.

“There is one, and only one, kind of real internationalism, and that
is—working whole-heartedly for the development of the revolutionary
movement and the revolutionary struggle in one’s own country, and
supporting (by propaganda, sympathy, and material aid) this struggle,
this, and only this line, in every country without exception.”

Lenin, The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution.

Mass Proletariat condemns the recent attack by the U.S. imperialists and
their allies in France and the U.K. on Syria. The attack represents a
dangerous escalation of the present inter-imperialist competition that
has engulfed the country and resulted in mass death and destruction for
the Syrian people. This indicates that the U.S. and its allies have an
interest in more aggressive military, economic, and political showdowns
in an effort to counter the growing influence of rival imperialists.
This escalation has been coupled with efforts by the U.S. state to
portray its involvement in the Syrian Civil War and the recent missile
strikes as a politically neutral endeavor that serves the interests of
all Americans.

Comrades in Mass Proletariat have been organizing in a few proletarian
workplaces in the greater Boston area for over a year. In this document
we will share a few key lessons learned from this experience. Other
comrades around the country are setting off on a similar path to ours,
and we hope that summarizing these lessons can clarify the stakes of the
present moment and help advance related work.

In over a year of workplace organizing we have experienced successes and
setbacks. A worker’s publication, regular meetings with coworkers, and a
principled and careful approach to finding ways to organize a broad
section of the workforce have been key to advancing the struggle at one
site. At another, the organizing failed to advance beyond basic
discussions. Positive movement there was repeatedly thwarted primarily
because comrades at that workplace were unable to overcome their
anti-people attitudes and ideas.

Today we celebrate international working women’s day, in solidarity with
the women and non-men around the world who are struggling against
patriarchy and other forms of oppression. The struggle against
patriarchy is an essential part of the struggle to break all chains, the
struggle for revolution and communism. Marx and Engels were clear that
patriarchy’s origin and development are closely linked with the
development of class society. As Engels put it, “the first class
oppression coincides with that of the female sex by the male.”1 If we
correctly grasp the relation between patriarchy and the class struggle
we can unite progressive struggles against particular instances of
patriarchal oppression. This united resistance will be essential to
forging a revolutionary movement capable of transforming U.S. society
and the world.

Friedrich Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State: “In ↩

Red Guards Austin’s (RGA) recent reply to our polemic RGA Is Not an MLM
Organization provides us with more negative examples of the anti-people
orientation and practice that revolutionaries in the U.S. need to combat
and overcome. In their reply, RGA claims that we don’t have
“credentials” to talk about revolutionary politics, distorts quotes from
our document, and obscures basic geopolitical realities to justify their
pro-imperialist and revisionist stands. RGA’s document itself is not
actually written to refute our document, but rather to reassure their
followers—most of whom seem not to have read our document—that RGA
is correct, and that by extension they are correct for following RGA’s
so-called leadership. The title itself, One More Time for Those in the
Back, positions RGA as a teacher, leading a class, with their facebook
lackeys as the “good students” and those who disagree with RGA as
students in the back who are not “listening up.”1 This relative
positioning reveals a lot about how RGA imagines themselves, namely as
bourgeois figures of authority. This idea is reinforced throughout their
document at every level, and this practice further exposes their
fundamentally anti-people outlook and politics.

Protracted People’s War (PPW) has been promoted as a universal strategy
for revolution in recent years despite the fact that this directly
contradicts Mao’s conclusions in his writing on revolutionary strategy.
Mao emphasized PPW was possible in China because of the semi-feudal
nature of Chinese society, and because of antagonistic divisions within
the white regime which encircled the red base areas. Basic analysis
shows that the strategy cannot be practically applied in the U.S. or
other imperialist countries. Despite this, advocates for the
universality of PPW claim that support for their thesis is a central
principle of Maoism. In this document we refute these claims, and
outline a revolutionary strategy based on an analysis of the concrete
conditions of the U.S. state.

Introduction

A group in Austin, Texas calls itself Red Guards Austin. Over the past
few years they have focused their efforts on distilling a somewhat edgy
form of eclectic bourgeois expression that represents a blend of 4chan
and Reddit trolling cultures.1 This in itself is not so notable. It
reflects a current of individualist ideology in the U.S. and is simply
one of many decadent and vulgar aspects characteristic of the U.S. state
and its ruling class. What is worthy of our attention is that RGA claims
to be Maoist, or Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, a theoretical synthesis of the
most advanced revolutionary struggles in history. Despite claiming to
practice MLM, RGA has consistently put forward a negation of the basic
principles of MLM. Therefore we find it necessary to publish a basic
critique of this group, which is masquerading as MLM, in order to
clarify the stakes and potential of this moment. The arguments put forth
here should be easily grasped by individuals and collectives with a
genuine desire to promote revolutionary developments given the
challenges of our place and time.

100 years ago on this day the Russian proletariat, allied with advanced
sections of the peasantry and led by the Bolshevik party, seized state
power. This began a civil war which consolidated the first proletarian
dictatorship in history to exercise control over a whole country, an
event of world-historic importance for the proletarian struggle. The
proletarian dictatorship in the USSR was eventually overturned, and the
century since October has seen many revolutionary high points and also
many defeats. The Bolshevik revolution, however, has an enduring
relevance to us, to our current efforts here in the US, and to the
efforts of the international communist movement overall. The victory of
this revolution galvanized the masses the world over and showed that
proletarian politics could overcome the forces of reaction. The
Bolshevik Revolution must not be confined to the history books, it is a
living example of what is possible, and what will be achieved again.

For the last six months members of our collective have joined workers in
their daily struggles on the job. While it is too early to provide a
comprehensive summation of our experiences thus far inside these work
places, we offer the following observations which we think may be of use
to collectives attempting to forge mass links through fusing with the
masses.1

1

Regular meetings outside the workplace are key for advancing
conversations and political development. This has been one dividing
line, among others, by which we have been able to identify workers who
see a basis for actively opposing oppression and exploitation. Their
interest in initial earnest collective struggle at the worksite can be
contrasted to those who represent ideas and stands typical of the broad
left. Repeatedly, those in this latter category who are outwardly
“political”—i.e. those who fixate on electoral politics or liberal
solutions like Sanders—have been some of the more reactionary members of
the workplace. This often coincides with forms of explicit liberal
identity politics and implicit white chauvinism. While such individuals
have the appearance of being politically engaged, when it comes to
issues in the workplace—which are right in front of them—they generally
stand with management, snitch, and police others who may break the
rules. Conversely, we have laid a foundation for collective proletarian
struggle by confronting supervisors and challenging anti-worker
policies, and by working to build unity with those who are willing to
meet up to discuss issues, not with those who merely have the appearance
form of being politically engaged.

It was very helpful to read this 1967 study in Peking Review of Mao’s ↩

The present world situation is defined by a system of
capitalist-imperialist relations, and the principal contradiction on the
global scale is between imperialist states and oppressed peoples. In
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism Lenin put forward a Marxist
analysis of the nature of capitalist-imperialism, and it is to this
document that we shall refer, so as to understand the nature of the
contemporary inter-imperialist conflict.

It is important that we not fetishize armed conflict as the determining
factor in assessing whether a country is an imperialist power. Lenin is
quite clear that the military conflicts between imperialist powers are a
result of the economic and political struggle between them. In his
numerous discussions of World War I, he repeatedly referred to Carl von
Clausewitz’s idea that “War is a continuation of politics by other
means.”1 Therefore, we will repeat Lenin’s claim that “unless this
[the economic essence of imperialism] is studied, it will be
impossible to understand and appraise modern war and modern politics.”

So, what then is the economic essence of imperialism? It is the
concentration of capital in monopolies, the fusion of banking and
industrial capital into finance capital, the export of capital abroad,
and the struggle between imperialist powers to repartition the world
markets (which eventually and inevitably leads to war between
imperialist powers). Russia exhibits all of these features, and is
therefore a capitalist-imperialist country. This article offers some
analysis of the Russian state and its role in the inter-imperialist
conflicts around the world.

Struggle for the liberation of women and non-men! Grasp revolution and firmly oppose formalism and tailism!

Patriarchy is a central issue in the development of proletarian political
organization, and if a revolutionary line on the liberation of women and
non-men is not correctly grasped errors relating to this question will be
repeated. Many correctly uphold the need for proletarian feminism, a feminist
orientation rooted in a Marxist analysis of class and capitalism, and identify
the need for women and non-men to be involved in the leadership of
organizations. This is absolutely necessary, but it is not sufficient for
a revolutionary proletarian feminist orientation overall.

Since this summer, Mass Proletariat engaged in a work place struggle
in Boston. The struggle comprised two fronts: struggle against the
oppression of the workers at the hands of the reactionary capitalists,
and the struggle to show the basis for revolutionary politics among
the workers in the face of the dominant ideology of reform and
trade-unionism. Before we joined the struggle there were positive
elements in the workers’ ranks. They had recently overwhelmingly voted
down a poor contract that management claimed was their “best and final
offer.” This confrontation displayed a sharpening of contradictions in
the workplace. Also, several comrades had participated in actions
organized by the workers at the site. Through this work, these
comrades had developed links with the workers, which enabled them to
coordinate initial meetings and investigation of the situation.

Our engagement in the struggle made clear to us that the strengthening of
proletarian organization and development of mass struggle are two separate
processes, mutually reinforced and dialectically related by the united front.
In this document we describe how our understanding of developed through the
course of the struggle.

The Development of the Struggle

Our involvement in this struggle can be divided into three periods, an early,
middle, and late period. The early period saw the initial development of
contacts with the workers and the beginning of organized protests. The middle
period saw qualitative changes in the character of the protests, the
development of a united front, and expanded outreach and participation among
the workers. The late stage saw further developments in the protests and
a setback in the local situation, in the form of signing a ‘sugar coated
bullet’ of a contract.

This statement follows several months of involvement in a workplace
struggle, an experience that has greatly informed our engagement with
Maoism as well as with the Maoist left. Even in this early stage of our
work, the need to unite with other struggles and forces on the left is
clear. Dialectically relating the particular and the universal is
necessary to advance Maoist politics. We encourage all who aspire to
a principled proletarian politics to begin the conversation by mailing us
questions and comments at massproletariat@riseup.net (PGP
key). We eagerly solicit principled
engagement, in particular criticism where relevent. This is vital to
advance the process of party building in the U.S.

In the last few years we have seen the emergence of nearly a dozen collectives
in the U.S. which aspire to promote Maoist politics. This is a necessary break
from bourgeois revisionist trends that have historically acted like daggers in
the backs of the masses. While this turn towards Maoism is a positive
development, we must intervene to address various deviations in the U.S. Maoist
left. If these deviations are left unchecked, they will work to conceal
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism behind walls of ignorance and dogmatism.

The Maoist left in the United States understands the need to build the
foundation of proletarian power. However, at present there is a lack of clarity
on how to carry out this task. This confusion is the result of the lack of
a revolutionary pole, analogous to that which existed prior to Deng Xiaoping’s
counter-revolution in 1976, capable of orienting and inspiring advanced
elements of the masses. In this vacuum of mass support for communist politics,
many comrades are disoriented about how to apply the lessons of past
revolutions in the present situation. Instead, the default tendency is to
suspend disbelief, and imagine that because of a nominal adherence to Maoism as
‘correct and universal’ the people’s liberation army is bound to materialize
at any moment, or that the establishment of base areas is around the corner.

This idealist evaluation of our present situation is rooted in the notion that
revolutionary advance is simply a matter of a ritualistic practice rather than
a struggle that passes through the fire of principled criticism and material
analysis. This error is the result of a failure to grasp and apply foundational
principles of Maoism. As such, we call for our movement to undergo a course
correction that shows the basis for navigation is not a Maoist aesthetic
(punchy though it may be), but rather the firm and diligent application of
fundamental principles.

Following the decision last week for the People’s Forum
to become a weekly event, our comrades met with a contact
to continue the discussion. The People’s Forum was created in
an effort to go beyond the organizational form of reformist
marches, and build a discussion and exchange of experiences
that could serve as a basis for building proletarian power.

Much like last week, the discussion was centered on the question of
political organization. This week, our discussion opened with the topic of
identity as a basis for organization. The question was posed, should
revolutionary politics be based on an identitarian determination of one’s
political role. For instance, should white people primarily organize white
neighborhoods, and black people organize black neighborhoods? A position
commonly put forward by practioners of liberal identity-politics is that
the division of labor within political organizations should be strictly
determined by one’s nationality.

In April, following the dissolution of the New Communist Party - Liason
Committee (NCP-LC), the Boston and Richmond branches of the Maoist
Communist Group (MCG) published a document titled “The Externalization of
the Anti-Revisionist Struggle is the Negation of Proletarian Politics”.
This document was an attempt to sum up the disagreements that the Boston
and Richmond branches had developed with the New York branch. Since the
document’s publication, the Boston branch has become increasingly
concerned with the politics being put forth by the VA branch, and in
recently reviewing the document, we noted many articulations with which we
do not agree. We’ve come to the determination that we need to publish
a self-criticism of our endorsement of some of the positions put forth in
the document. To be clear, we still uphold the criticisms of the NY branch
with whom we have since split. What is at stake in this self-criticism is
not reneging on the critiques of NY and their small-clique politics of
supposed purity, but rather clarifying our opposition to left-adventurism.
For a succinct definition of left-adventurism we turn to Mao:

In the wake of recent acts of police violence in Louisiana and
Minnesota, members of Mass Proletariat attended a meeting for the
planning of a left unity rally as part of the national upsurge in public
protests against police violence. At both the meeting, and at the
subsequent rally, our comrades pursued the two-line struggle, putting
forth the distinction between reformist politics which diffuse the correct
ideas of the masses and proletarian politics which concentrate the correct
ideas of the masses.

Since the national meeting of the Maoist Communist Group in April, we in
Boston have been engaged in sustained invesigation and struggle into the
internal contradictions within our group. We view internal contradictions
as primary and understand the need to constantly work to correctly handle
contradictions among the people by following the principle
unity-struggle-unity. This, in addition to our focus on struggling against
the division of labor within our organization, is an important break from
the practices of the NY branch of the MCG. Externally, we have been
focused on outreach, propaganda and agitation work in Dorchester. This is
a form of social investigation to determine contradictions which define
the situation in Dorchester and, more broadly, Boston as a whole. These
investigations have also included prolonged follow-up meetings with
contacts to explore mutual grounds for political development in a clear
and non-mystified manner. We have identified a lack of prompt follow-up
with contacts as a key barrier in developing sustained relations with
contacts and making inroad into a ongoing struggle. There are also
substantial barriers in communicating our political orientation without
being conflated with NGO groupings that also table in the area. We need to
more thoroughly investigate and merge with ongoing workplace and housing
struggles across the city. In addition to this, we are currently
struggling over the best ways to improve our overall presentation,
engagement, and agitation work among mass contacts. Through addressing
these contradictions we will continue to improve our political practice
and advance the cause of the proletarian revolution.

The Boston branch of the MCG is announcing the dissolution of organizational ties
with the NYC branch of the MCG. Attempts to pursue ideological struggle over basic
questions were constantly ignored by the New York branch, culminating in the public
articulation of these differences in the Boston/Richmond piece The Externalization of the Anti-Revisionist struggle is the Negation of Proletarian Politics.
This article was met with no ideological engagement from the New York branch and resulted
in the total cesation of communication from New York. Such a response fits a pattern of
unprincipled politics from New York, including the previous promotion of a phantom branch,
as well as the denial and stalling of real branch formation and membership, acts that the
New York members boasted were necessary in order to preserve their total control over the
organization. Despite our disappointment with the backwards direction the New York group has
taken, through the sequence comrades in Boston have forged a greater political unity.

Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win.

-The Maoist Communist Group Boston (Mass Proletariat)

Afternote:

Although the initial statement of differences with NY was written jointly with the MCG’s
Richmond branch, as of late the Richmond branch has endorsed a negation of Maoist politics
and a new articulation of left unity which we do not share. This has been conveyed to us
via email exchanges and certain aspects of this politics of left unity are apparent in
their article Fuck Trump! Reportback. Our
Response and ideological criticism of their recent practice can be found in our article
On Trumpism/Anti-Trumpism.

“We are also opposed to ‘Left’ phrase-mongering. The thinking of
‘Leftists’ outstrips a given stage of development of the objective
process; some regard their fantasies as truth while others strain to
realize in the present an ideal which can only be realized in the future.
They alienate themselves from the current practice of the majority of the
people and from the realities of the day, and show themselves to be
adventurist in their actions” Mao Zedong, On Practice, 1937.

Comrades in Richmond, VA have recently participated in an Anti-Trump
rally and posted a write-up about it which can be found
here.
We in Boston, while being affiliated with these comrades, do not support
this sort of action or their summation of its impact. While we agree that
there is a need to struggle against and defeat fascist politics, we do not
believe that comrades in Richmond are actually engaged in a struggle
against fascism. Rather, it seems that they have posited the existence of
a fascist threat (which is equated with the supporters of Donald Trump)
instead of engaging in a material investigation of the nature of white
supremacy in this conjuncture. The lack of material understanding of the
nature of white supremacy is embodied in the statement that “[liberals]
expect us to give fascists the benefit of the doubt, and to wait until
we’re all in concentration camps before we start resisting.” Yet it is not
clear that there is an immanent threat of the creation of concentration
camps in the United States. Furthermore, this action is proportedly taken
in defense of the victims of the “white nationalist resurgence,” namely
“oppressed black and brown people” and “white women” to whom, it is claimed,
this resurgence poses an “existential threat.” Without a clear analysis of
the nature of the supposed fascist threat this effectively amounts to
a liberal politics of recognition and enumeration of supposedly
agency-less victims.

Note: This document was originally published here on April 23, 2016 in the wake of the dissolution of the New Communist Party-Liason Committee. It is republished here with minor edits for spelling and grammar.

In reviewing the collapse of the New Communist Party-Liason Committee (NCP-LC), the Maoist
Communist Group (MCG) has come to the realization that there exist fundamental political
differences within our own organization.

The NY Branch has sought to promote its initial admonitions against patriarchal
behavior, issued in 2014 as the correct basis for resolving the contradictions
that surfaced in the LC prior to its recent dissolution. 1

The branches in Boston and Virginia hold a fundamentally different position. Instead, we
believe that the primary contradiction within the LC is internal to our grouping as well.
A few members of the NY Branch suppressed discussion within the national organization on
this matter. The prevention of internal debate has been justified by terming ideological
struggle “excessively tedious,” and by saying it prevents “intervention in a timely way
in a concrete situation,” presumably to communicate with the small group left following
the dissolution of the LC. This argument violates the MCG’s stated emphasis on the primacy
of mass work and principled ideological unity. 2 The NY unit has used bureaucratic
maneuvers and other unprincipled tactics to suppress dissenting views. As a result, the VA
and Boston branches are publishing a joint analysis of this situation, separate from New York’s.

Mass Proletariat came into being because of a need and a lack. A need for
principled politics, here in Boston and at large, and a lack of political
organization that was not predicated on the reproduction of the bourgeois
world. Without principled politics we are bound to reproduce the very
structures we nominally seek to oppose.

Mass Proletariat has decided to cease our work and cut off connections with one
initial member who repeatedly defined himself in opposition to our stated task
of militant politics. Rather than focusing on the political task at hand, he
continuously conflated the political and the personal. This is a deviation all
too common in contemporary left politics, that effectively reduces politics to
identity and a nominal opposition to the state. In the handling of internal
contradictions the principle of unity, criticism, unity was discarded in favor
of antagonistic struggle, which effectively changed the nature of internal
contradictions and created antagonistic divisions within Mass Proletariat. Thus
ceasing to work with this individual is not so much about this individual as
our need to break from the lifestyle political tendencies that this individual
represents.